The Gecko And The Cameleon
by vigilante'sgirl
Summary: Cassandra LaRose is a chemist for Wayne Industries, Sara Jones is a florist. What happens when they recive reptlian powers? T for safty, mechanics problems fixed.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter one: the loss of an old friend and the discovery of two new ones.**_

Professor La Rose was having an exceedingly bad day. To begin with, her boyfriend had broken-up with her the night before. Then, she returned to her flat, hoping for a little sympathy, and found the place trashed and her gecko sticking to the outside of the windows, getting him off had been a fiasco. She didn't get any sleep than night because it took nearly an hour to get Geico off the window; yes, you read that right, she named her gecko after an insurance company. Then there was the task of cleaning the flat.

At one in the morning, her flat-mate returned, drunk as could be. "Hey, you cleaned the flat, cool." Sarah, the flat-mate, slurred as she stumbled in, nearly falling on her face. Sarah was a well-endowed red-head who had a party-girl streak about a mile long. The contrast between them was almost sharp as that between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Cassandra, Professor La Rose, was tall, slender, and didn't go out of her way to befriend people while, Sarah was short, well curved, and made friends with everyone.

There were only two things that they shared, over-all eye-color and a taste in music. Their eyes were dark blue and the only difference was that Sarah's eyes had flecks of gold and had the shape that most Caucasians had to their eyes while Cassandra's eyes had flecks of silver and where shaped like those of someone from the Orient. As to music, they would listen to anything that had a good sound that you could sing along to, except Screamo. Anyway, on with the story.

As her friend stumbled, Cassandra secretly hoped that she really would fall on her face, but no such luck. There were a million questions that she wanted to ask, mainly why her poor reptile had been stuck to the outside of the window and why the sink in the bathroom had been filled with Cheetos and Lays chips, but, considering the fact that people have a very tough time remembering what they did after drinking that much, she figured it was hopeless and stormed off to bed to catch a few hours sleep before work.

She woke up at six in the morning thinking that things might not be so bad after all, even if that was the truth, things were about to get a lot worse. She was driving down 6th Ave. in Gothem City jamming to Click Five's Pop Princess in her old red VW bug. She had recently had the finish redone and was very attached to the old car. Suddenly, as she turned a left onto another street, a huge Toyota pick-up truck rammed her on the driver's side. She lost consciousness as she rolled the first time.

When she came to, she was on a stretcher an being loaded into the back of an ambulance. When they lifted the front wheels, she caught sight of her beloved bug, totaled. Right then and there she wanted to start bawling.

The car had been left to her in her grandparent's will, they died at the age of one-hundred, and she had loved the car passionately. Her grandmother had planed to re-finish it and put in seats that were white with a red stripe down the middle, so, as a tribute, Cassandra had done it for her. She recalled all of the occasions when the cars of her collage peers had failed while her little bug kept at it. After she reached the hospital and the doctors said she was fine, they were surprised that she walked away from that sort of an accident with only bruises and scrapes, she went to meet the person who rammed her.

"So, yer gonna pay fer a new paint-job on ma truck, aren't ya, doll-face." where the first words out of the mouth of the son of a monkey who had rammed her.

"Excuse me! I don't think so, you totaled my car being an irresponsible driver! I had the right of way and _you_, you jerk, you charged ahead and ruined my poor '98 Volkswagen! Do you know how lucky you are that I didn't die in that crash? Because, if I had, my family would see to it that you were put behind bars so that the roads would be free of one less stupid driver!" Cassandra bellowed, adding hand motions for emphasis, she was usually a very quiet person, but that was too much. How dare that, that, _man_ say that sort of thing after the damage he had caused? He didn't even have the courtesy to act apologetic.

"Don't ya talk to me like that." he growled, he was a mountain of a man, but in her present mood, she could have taken down Superman with ease.

"Now, I think the liddle lady has a right to talk like that after what happened." a good-natured voice with a southern twang said.

"Indeed she does." a voice with a old British accent said. Cassandra turned to see two fairly tall, and muscular males walking toward them. One of them was black haired while the other was blonde.

"What you gonna do about it?" What they would have done, we can only guess, because at that moment Cassandra took action. She hit him on the jaw. Hard.

"Nobody threatens me!" she said and walked outside to call Sarah.

"Pardon me, miss, but you might get into a tad of trouble fer deck'n 'im." they, the two gentlemen who had tried to protect her, had followed her outside for some reason which was beyond her.

"In my present mood, I don't really care." she said finishing her text to Sarah, her phone hadn't been hurt in the roll-over.

"Well, if he files charges against ya, ya may need witnesses to prove that you were threatened. I'm Greg Saunders and my friend here is Justin Arthur."

"Madame." Justin, the blonde, said bowing as he was introduced.

"I'm Professor Cassandra La Rose and I doubt that he'd fess up to being knocked of his feet by a girl." she said, grinning, as her best-friend rolled into the parking lot.

"That was a pretty spectacular punch." Greg agreed.

"Indeed." said Justin.

"So, yer a professor, huh? What of?" Greg asked, scratching his head under his hat.

"Chemistry, I'm currently working for Wayne Industries." at this the men shared a meaningful look that she couldn't decipher. She might have been able to given more time, but, at that moment, Sarah ran over.

"Are you alright? I stopped by the cite of the crash and saw the wreckage of your bug, its amazing that you survived." Sarah said, holding Cassandra at arms-length and looking over her anxiously.

"Yep, we saw the crash. Yer car rolled five times before it stopped. If it hadn't been for Shining Knight's sword, you might still be in that car." Greg said.

"Gentlemen, this is Sarah Jones, my flat mate and best friend." Cassandra said, grabbing her friend's shoulders and pulled her forward.

"Tis an honor." Justin said, bowing grandly.

"I… um… thank you." Sarah stammered. Cassandra was shocked, the queen of parties, the biggest flirt of them all, stammering at three little words, and not even the big three little words at that, and a simple gesture. In fact, Cassandra wasn't even sure that 'tis' was a word. This was amazing, for once in the three years that they had been friends, Sarah had never stammered or acted at a loss for words.

She recovered and quickly said, "Sarah, this is Greg Saunders and this is Justin Arthur." indicating each in turn. As she looked at Justin and Sarah looking at each other, she had a sudden premonition that they would be seeing a lot of Justin and Greg.

"Cassandra," Sarah said, suddenly realizing something she had forgotten, "I managed to find the hood ornament from your bug, I thought you might like to have it." pulling the VW emblem from her pocket.

"Thanks." Cassandra said, her voice broke as she said it and her fingers shook when she took it from her friends hand. Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes,_ Great, just great, _she thought, _now I'm going to start crying in front two people I just met in the middle of a parking-lot. _

In zero seconds flat, Greg and Justin had both whipped out a handkerchief and were trying to hand them to her. When their hands touched, both men gave each other looks that clearly said, 'I was doing that, thank you very much'. Sarah started to giggle, Cassandra cracked a smile.

"What?" both men asked, faces blank.

"Ah ha ha, the looks on your, ee he he, faces when you pulled out your handkerchiefs…" the rest of Sarah's sentence was impossible to understand because she was laughing too hard to even stand up straight, let alone talk. Meanwhile Cassandra was fighting to keep composure, all thoughts of shedding tears far from her mind.

"They were rather amusing." Cassandra said.

By this time, the sun had begun to set. "I hate to bring this meeting to an end, but, we had best be going. I still have to pick up the work that was lined out for me today from WI." Cassandra said, with a bit of a sad smile on her face.

"Next time you boys have a little time off, give us a call and we'll see about five-six hours in a café chit-chatting, unless you want to stand around a hospital parking-lot." Sarah said, holding out our cards, she had had them made a few months back and before that day, Cassandra had never seen the use in them.

"We'll be sure an' do that, Darlin'" Greg said, and for some reason, Cassandra was certain that he was talking to her rather than to Sarah.

"Indeed." Justin said, bowing again. "Twas a pleasure to meet you both." Cassandra could tell Sarah was having stomach butterflies,

"It was a pleasure to meet the both of you as well." Cassandra said, knowing that her friend's voice-box wouldn't work for awhile.

Cassandra practically drug Sarah over to her pink Cadillac, and then she got in the passenger side. Sarah started the car and started to pull out of the parking-lot when she leaned over in a secretive manner and whispered, "That Justin in kinda cute."

"What are you gonna tell your boyfriend?" Cassandra asked, Sarah was dating a very dangerous gangster at the time. "Two words, 'It's over'" Sarah said, not the slightest bit worried.

"Whatever." Cassandra said, knowing this wasn't going to go over well. When Sarah didn't answer, Cassandra slipped into her own world and mused over the loss of an old friend and discovery of two new ones. The bug had performed a final task of bringing two good guys into her life, one of whom she was certain would turn some of her best friend's bad habits around.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Wayne Industries and Reptiles.

Sarah was very proud of her car. She had found it when she was eighteen, in a used car lot and had her uncle, a five-star mechanic by all accounts, fixed it up and polished the exterior. When she turned nineteen, her parents got some seats custom made out of very squishy foam stuff, and had the seats covered with high quality leather. It was amazing, considering her lousy driving and her lack of hygiene, the car was still in good shape after five years in her possession since the gift of the seats.

This is what Cassandra was musing on as they drove through the streets of Gotham on their way to her work. There were many things about Sarah and her possessions that was a mystery to Cassandra. Like how the gold rings and necklace that sat on her bedside table never had been stolen. They were obviously of great value and the people that Sarah brought in the flat weren't exactly of good repute and yet, as far as she knew, they had never even been touched. Cassandra was almost certain that Sarah's gang-leader boyfriend was the reason, but she sincerely hoped that it wasn't.

Sarah had met Ivan Babinski, the gangster, two years back and hit it off with him right away. When Cassandra had met him, she honestly wondered if it was some kind of joke and waited the whole evening for Sarah to yell "kidding" and for the joke to come to a close, but sadly it didn't. A couple months later, Sarah brought some pictures of Ivan from when he was a little kid for Cassandra to look at; the first thought that came to her mind was the Soviet Russia joke about Pedo-bear running from the children.

Half the time Cassandra hoped that the relationship would just end quietly and that Ivan would just walk out of their lives forever. It made her so mad that Sarah was hanging around with him and she obviously didn't love him. So mad, that she was about to say something about it when they pulled into the Wayne Industries parking-lot. Suddenly she had something a little more pressing to concern herself with.

Bruce Wayne's car was sitting in the parking-lot. Bruce Wayne was a notorious play-boy and the closest thing to a classy male harlot that had probably ever existed on this planet. That wasn't was made Cassandra anxious though, it was the fact that sometimes if you looked hard enough you could see something brooding and much more dangerous under the surface. She didn't know what he was hiding, but she pitied anyone who ever found-out. Once she had seen him not acting like the flirty play –boy that she had grown to identify as her boss, it was frightening. In that moment, she wondered if he was related to Batman or something.

She didn't have very long to think about it though, because Sarah got out of the car and began walking to the building. Cassandra resisted the urge to tell Sarah to get back in the car and wait while she went to get her work herself. Cassandra knew that if she told Sarah that she should wait, Sarah would ask why and then there would be a rather awkward explanation and she would just walk right into the building anyway.

"_What would I tell her, anyway? My boss is extremely attractive and I think he's hiding something? Ha, she'd just laugh and say that all business tycoons are hiding something and that if it worried me that much then I should find work elsewhere." _Cassandra thought as she ran after her red-headed compadre.

A few months ago, she had received orders from the 'Big Kahuna', that they were going to work on a vaccine for the common cold. This had resulted in many nights of staying in the lab late to work, and just yesterday Cassandra had finally mixed up something she thought would work. There were a few minor things that could be done to tweak the mixture to make a perfect balance, but that could be done at home.

As they entered the building, Cassandra noticed the crowd of her co-workers who had gathered near the door to the lounge and made a point to steer Sarah in the opposite direction which, luckily, lead to the lab. At her, work station, Cassandra carefully gathered all of the things that she needed. The lab rats used to test the formula had come out fine so the only thing left to do was add a few basic chemicals to ensure that it was safe for human use.  
As they were exiting the building, one of Cassandra's co-workers, a woman by the name of Selah, noticed her and merely nodded. One good thing about working for Wayne Industries was that you were surrounded by scientific geniuses, most of who, by nature, were rather flamboyant and unreliable so nobody really noticed if you only showed up for a few moments with a friend.

As they walked out of the building, Cassandra let out a small sigh of relief. The successful evading of Bruce Wayne was often a challenge, especially when you didn't want to deal with him. Her relief soon vanished when Sarah checked her voice-mail on her phone and, with a rather upset look thrown in for good measure, handed her the phone.

"Hi Sarah, this is Monique from across the hall. Look I've hit on hard finical times and I had to find a new apartment, but I can't take Blake with me so I was wondering if you would keep him. Please, I just… I know he would be in good hands with you. Bye." Upon hearing the message, Cassandra groaned. It was obvious that Monique was crying. Cassandra did not deal well with people crying.

Monique Benabou (pronounced Ben-a-boo) was a thirty-five year old who had found kindred spirits in Cassandra and Sarah because they all liked lizards. The difference was that Monique took her love for her Chameleon to a whole new level that the girls had never been acquainted with prior to meeting her. She had scarves, sweaters and other items of clothing specially ordered for her pet and offered to do the same for Geico. (Needless to say, her kind offer was politely turned down). She was very fond of Blake and parting with him would be a terrible thing for the poor woman.

"What do you think?" Sarah asked, as they stopped at a red-light. In the dim glow of the streetlights it was hard to see her face, but Cassandra didn't need to see it to know that her expression was a troubled one.

"Well, if we were in her shoes, she would do the same for us. So I say we take the lizard." Cassandra said with a sigh, she had a soft spot of the eccentric thirty-five year old that made it impossible to say 'no'.

"So, we stop at Pet-Co before going home so that we can pick-up whatever we need for the new arrival?"

"No, more than likely, Monique will berate us for not getting a specific brand of who-knows-what for the chameleon, so its best that we find out what she wants us to use to take care of her pet. Besides, a sudden change of diet is bad for any animal and we don't know what vitamins she's feeding it in its food." Cassandra replied.

"Ever the voice of reason you are." Sarah said, chuckling in spite of her friend's obvious displeasure as they pulled on to their street.

"I noticed you were making eyes at that Cowboy." Sarah said her tone light and teasing.

"Greg, and I was not." Cassandra said, sounding more defensive than she had meant to.

"Sure, whatever you say." Sarah said, being more than a little sarcastic and rolling her eyes for added emphasis.

"What's that supposed to mean? I wasn't…"

"Honey, you spend way too much time with your books. It's nothing to be ashamed of if you like a guy and I don't want my best friend to end up as an old maid." Sarah interrupted, almost chiding with a gentleness to her tone that was similar to that of a mother telling her child that there was no monster under the bed and to stop being ridiculous and go to sleep.

Cassandra didn't say anything and pretended to be preoccupied with the keys to their flat, as they exited the car and made their way to the door.

"Home sweet home, I'll talk to Monique tomorrow about taking in Blake if you want, she's probably going to start crying again when it's brought up." Sarah said, showing sympathy for her friends lack of skills when it came to dealing with people who were crying.

"Thanks Sarah." Cassandra said as she laid out all of the materials she needed to complete the vaccine on their dinner table.

"You're not working on that tonight are you? You've been through a traumatic experience, you should rest and don't give me that line about finding comfort and relaxation in your work. You need to rest." Sarah said, placing her hand on the table in between the supplies and Cassandra.

"But you know I do." Cassandra said, "My work allows me to put my brain in order and arrange my thoughts. When I'm working it's like I've found nirvana and…"

"No! Go to bed now!"

"Yes Mom."


End file.
